I drive him there. We pull up outside the house and I see the balloons tied to the gateposts, the cards in the lounge windows. Connor opens the car door and at the same time Dylan’s mother, Sally, comes out into the porch. She’s someone I know quite well, we’ve gone for coffee after school, though always with other people, and I haven’t seen her for a while. I wave, and she waves back. Behind her I can see streamers, the flash of children running upstairs. She raises her eyebrows and I smile in sympathy.
‘Have fun,’ I say to Connor.
‘I will.’
He lets me kiss him on the cheek then picks up his bag and races into the house.
When I get back home the place seems cavernously empty. Hugh is still in Geneva and has sent me a text message – the flight was okay, the hotel is nice, he’s heading for dinner soon and wonders how I’m feeling – and I tap out a reply. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Missing you.’
I press send. I make some dinner, then sit in front of the television. I ought to call my friends, I know that. But it’s difficult, I don’t want to inflict myself upon them, and I can sense that when they hear my voice the energy drops as the shadow of Kate’s death falls on all of us.
I’m not me, any more, I realize. I carry something else now. The stigma of pain. And I don’t want it.
I think of Marcus. We’d been seeing each other for less than a year when he said he wanted to move. ‘Where?’ I asked, and he said, ‘Berlin.’
He seemed so certain, and so desperate. I thought he was trying to get away from me, even though until that moment we’d been happy. He could see it in my eyes. The flash of disappointment, suppressed a moment too late.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t understand. I want you to come with me.’
‘But—’
He shook his head. He was determined.
‘You have to. I want to go with you. I don’t want to go by myself.’
But you will, I thought. If I don’t come. You’ve already decided.
‘Please come. What’s keeping you here?’ I shook my head. ‘Is it the meetings? We’ve been clean for ages now. We don’t need to go any more.’
‘I know, but…’
‘Is it Kate?’
I nodded. ‘She’s only twelve.’
He stroked my arm, kissed me. ‘She’s in school now. You can’t look after her for ever.’
I thought of all the fun we’d had, Kate and I, despite how hard it’d been at times. We used to make popcorn and sit watching videos, or we’d play in the long grass at the bottom of our garden, pretending to be chased by dinosaurs. Dressing up in our mother’s clothes, wearing her shoes, spraying ourselves with her perfume.
‘How long have you been looking after her?’
‘Eight years.’
‘Exactly. And now it’s time your father started doing his bit. Besides, she’s nearly a teenager now. You have your own life to live.’
I told him I’d need to think about it, but really I already knew. Kate was nearly thirteen, older than I’d been when I started looking after her. She’d had enough years of my life. Kate would be fine.
Except she wasn’t. I open my eyes. I reach for my laptop.
Anna’s online. I message her.
‘Any luck?’ she asks.
I think of the few people who have messaged me. There’s been nothing interesting.
‘Not yet,’ I reply.
Hugh comes back from his conference. He takes the train from the airport, then a cab, and arrives carrying a huge bunch of flowers. He kisses me then hands them over. ‘What have I done to deserve this?’ I say, and he shrugs. ‘Nothing. I love you, that’s all. I missed you.’ I find a vase. ‘I missed you, too,’ I say, a little too automatically.
I take the scissors out of the kitchen drawer and begin to trim the stems.
‘How’s Connor?’
‘Good, I think.’
‘And you?’
I tell him I’m fine. ‘I had a job,’ I say, thinking back to the day before. ‘A friend of Fatima’s. Her daughter wants to be a model and needed some pictures for her portfolio.’
‘That’s good,’ he says. ‘Have you seen Adrienne?’
‘No. But she called. She’s in York, with work. But we’ve arranged dinner.’
He smiles and says he thinks that will do me good. I didn’t tell him Adrienne has asked if I’d decided about going online and I’d said no, not yet.
Another lie. I’ve logged on a few times, and now it’s Friday night. Hugh’s upstairs, catching up with admin, and Connor is at a friend’s house working on a homework project. I’ve already edited the pictures I took on Wednesday, and now I’m half watching the television. It’s a drama. Undercover cops, a series of brutal murders, duct tape, revenge and rape. Every victim beautiful, of course, as if we wouldn’t care otherwise; plus, we’re supposed to envy them their lives right until the moment the blade slices into their flesh.
It’s no use, I can’t focus. I switch it off. I can’t help thinking of Kate. She was pretty, but not beautiful, and she wasn’t raped. Kate was killed because she happened to be walking down the wrong alleyway in the wrong part of town at the wrong time, or so Hugh and everybody else tells me. It’s as simple as that.
Except it isn’t. It can’t be.
I log back on to encountrz. I know I should leave it alone, do something else instead, but I can’t. My message to Harenglish is now a week old and he still hasn’t responded.
He isn’t online, but there is something in my inbox, something new.
Largos86. I click on his profile and see that he’s younger than me – he claims to be thirty-one, though if anything he doesn’t even look as old as that – and is attractive, with curly hair, cut short. I imagine he could be a model, or an actor, though I remind myself he’ll have chosen one of the more flattering photos of himself. If he were in the drama I’ve just switched off he’d be playing a kindly doctor, or a lover. He’s too attractive to be the husband. I open his message.
‘Hi,’ it says. ‘I’d love to talk. You remind me of someone.’
I flinch; it’s like being punched. I remind you of someone. For an instant there’s only one thing, one person, he can mean. I’d deliberately chosen my profile photo to be one that looks like Kate, after all.
I have to know. Beneath his message is a link, an invitation to a private chat. Largos86 knows I’m online. I click on accept, then type.
– Hi. Who do I remind you of?
His reply comes almost instantaneously.
– Someone I liked a lot.
Liked, I think. Past tense. Someone who isn’t around any more, one way or another.
– But let’s not talk about her. How’re you?
No! It’s her I want to talk about.
– Good, I say.
A moment later he replies:
– I’m Lukas. Fancy a chat?
I stop. Since I’ve been going online I’ve learned it’s unusual for someone to give away their name so quickly. I wonder if he’s lying.
– I’m Jayne.
I pause.
– Where are you?
– In Milan. How about you?
I think of his first message. You remind me of someone.
I want to find out if he might’ve talked to Kate. I decide to tell a lie of my own.
– I’m in Paris.